We, Too, Were Clancy

🐉🏰🎸

In the late spring and summer of 1998 — May and July, to be exact — theatergoers were treated to not one but two big-budget movies featuring a rogue asteroid that threatened to extinguish life on planet Earth. In both films, a team of brave dudes embarks on a dangerous mission to haul a nuke into space and intercept the murderous rock before it can make its deep impact and cause armageddon. Both pictures were mediocre, and their names are best forgotten, but the pattern they represent is something we want briefly to discuss. Sometimes referred to as “dueling movies,” or “twin films,” this phenomenon occurs when Hollywood studios release two movies with strikingly similar subject matter during a 12-month period. They’re universally viewed as bad business for everybody, so it’s hard to know how these games of chicken happen at all, what with all the advance planning that goes into feature films, all the money on the line… and yet… Tombstone and Wyatt Earp… Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers… Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down… more recently, Hulu and Netflix’s Fyre Festival documentaries.

As gluttonous, even indiscriminate consumers of the cinematic arts, we ingested all of these titles, but not without nausea. It takes a toll, too much comet content all at once. It dizzies the mind, accepting that Wyatt Earp looked like Kurt Russell with a mustache, only to be shown a few months later that no, he looked like Kevin Costner with a mustache. Well, we’ve decided that we cannot in good conscience aid in perpetuating this undesirable practice. And so, with a mix of true regret and firm resolve, we hereby relinquish any claim on the “Clancy” storyline.

I — we — am/are not Clancy.

If you don’t know what we’re talking about, you probably haven’t watched the short film that 21 Pilots released last Friday. Take four minutes and go do that before you continue reading.

Done? Okay, so, first of all: it’s awesome. Clearly. But, also…

We had the exact same idea.

Like, the exact same idea.

And, because we know it will not only hurt 21 Pilots and their fans but also W.A.S. and our fans 🙏, and cause all sorts of confusion and accusations and spite and sadness — all the stuff music really isn’t supposed to be about — we are choosing to back away from our project now. After this post, we promise never to mention the topic again.

But man, since we’re still writing this post, it has to be said: our version of the saga of Dema, Trench, the Bishops, and yes Clancy, was really something to behold. It looked amazing (maybe even a little better than 21 Pilots’ version 😉), it had SUCH a rad mythology (same as 21 Pilots’ 🙏), and we were really looking forward to using it as a framework on which to hang our next five to ten years of musical releases. 😏

Okay, okay, we can practically hear you asking: Was our “I Am Clancy” saga really identical to what’s shown in the 21 Pilots video of the same name? It pretty much was, yes. Despite a few very minor differences, most viewers would probably not be able to tell the two trailers apart. A protagonist named “Clancy” who wears tactical hiking gear, sometimes with a balaclava? Check. Who is always escaping from a circular gray concrete city called Dema? Check. From there, does he go wander the beautiful green wilds of the greater subcontinent on which Dema sits, Trench? Check (our subcontinent is called “Honch”). Does he keep getting caught by a Bishop named Nico and brought back to Dema via a “drag path”? Yep (our Bishop’s name is Jay Nico). Do the Bishops have a miraculous power and also practice a hijacked religion called Vialism? 100% (though in ours the miraculous power is being able to hold their breath indefinitely). Is Vialism used to oppress the people of Dema? You bet it is. And Clancy, one time when he escapes and is again caught by Jay Nico, sees Banditos lined up on a cliff ledge above the drag path they’re taking back to Dema? You guessed it.

Are there any differences at all? One or two. In our “I Am Clancy,” Jay Nico doesn’t call himself “Blurry face.” (Kinda jealous of that idea, actually.) And while in our version Clancy and his band do play shows back in Dema, it’s not because the Bishops make them or anything. They’re basically doing it for fun and to kill time between escapes.

Obviously, because our Bishops’ power is breath holding and not “seizing” a dead body, Clancy doesn’t take over Jay Nico’s corpse at the end of the trailer. Jay Nico does get betrayed and dies, but he isn’t stabbed by another Bishop; instead, the speed hushers on his magnet bike are sabotaged (similar to brakes on a car), and he crashes into one of Dema’s many cement walls (really all walls in Dema).

It looks, from 21 Pilots’ trailer, as if the Banditos play a larger role in their tale, and honestly that seems like an improvement. In our “I Am Clancy,” the Banditos are around, but they don’t ever really do anything. You see them on the cliff ledge, and later they’re hanging out in some night boats, holding torches, but they don’t ever interact with Clancy or his bass player. In our minds, the Banditos were probably going to play less and less of a role as the story unfolded in the coming years. The way 21 Pilots handle it actually looks like a more interesting approach 🥹.

Honestly, otherwise the main difference is that the little animated troll guy you see near the end of 21 Pilots’ trailer is more of a constant companion for our Clancy. He’s by Clancy’s side in 99% of the shots — he’s even in Clancy’s band — the one exception being the topless weight lifting scene, although you can surmise that Cam is just fetching Clancy a lemon Powerade. (In our universe, Clancy’s favorite Powerade flavor is lemon, and the troll’s name is Cam, two details that one has to assume will be revealed in the next 21 Pilots video🤞.) And you find out that Cam is just in Clancy’s imagination — or is he? 😉

So it’s back to the drawing board for us, but we’re certainly looking forward to what comes next in 21 Pilots’ I Am Clancy saga. (We’ve got a pretty good idea 😉.) Before we say goodbye forever to W.A.S. x I.A.C., we’ll leave you with a couple of screen grabs from our unreleased version. 🥲

💔,
C & K